Kyoko's Dream Journal
by Vandelle
Summary: In which Ren Tsuruga goes snooping through the chronicles of Kyoko Mogami's nightly escapades and gets the shock of his life. Rated for language and lemon. (And maybe a bit of violence if I have Sho turn up at all, not sure yet)
1. Chapter 1

_disclaimer_: I do not own _Skip Beat!_

**Author's Note**: This features Kyoko and Ren as a newly minted couple, one of my favorite SB fanfic setups. It gets over the main emotional hill of them acknowledging their love for one another, but still contains quite a bit of Kyoko's shyness where Ren/Kuon is concerned as well as all the trials and tribulations that comes with building a sustainable relationship (and a celebrity one, to boot).

I can already tell I'm going to get called out for being OOC, but just stick around, read the chapter and then my very well-intentioned (if long-winded) rant at the bottom explaining why I went about things in this way. You'll (hopefully) be glad you did.

Hope ya'll like it!

* * *

_**Chapter One  
**_

* * *

The familiar chaos of a film set post-shoot wasn't enough to rattle a seasoned actor like Ren Tsuruga: not even close, in fact.

The red leather-bound journal sticking out of his girlfriend's bulging bag, however, was heavy artillery that he wasn't at all equipped for, and therefore more than enough to unbalance the normally unshakeable star. He glanced over at it for about the millionth time as it beckoned to him like a lover's hand.

_Take me ... Taaaake meeee_, it called out to him.

_Shut up_, Ren Tsuruga silently hissed in reply. He glanced around the gradually emptying sound stage, praying no one was picking up on his agitation.

He sighed, unable to cope with just how pitiful he was being at the moment. The decision to read the damn thing had been made days prior to this moment, but he still couldn't bring himself to get it over with. He knew he had to do it in the next ten minutes or so before she came looking for her bag.

A reprieve arrived in the form of a PA who was frantically clearing the tables and folding them up to be put into storage. He scooped up Kyoko's bag and a few others, carrying them off to an empty break room that was a few doors down from the gradually emptying studio. He set them gingerly on a nearby counter and then stood contemplating the journal.

He remembered the day she'd first gotten it. Well, he hadn't actually been there to see her buy it, but he remembered first noticing it - sticking out of her bag in much the same way as it had and asking her about it. It had been for a LoveMe assignment, back when she was still in that division. More than a year later, she still kept up the practice of writing in it. She had seen no reason to stop, having gained a measure of clarity in her life from the practice, and so had continued to write down her dreams each morning in the journal.

Ren stared down at the book for a few more moments. Then he heaved a sigh and pulled it out of the bag.

_Get it over with._

He flipped it open to the latest entry and began to read:

**_January 3, 2013 _**

**_2:12 AM_**

**_I don't know if I should put this down as an entry. I dreamed it, so obviously a record has to be made of it, but ... I highly doubt this is the sort of content the journal was intended for. It isn't exactly symbolic or hard to decipher or indicative of some deeper issue (at least I hope it isn't ... that would be scary). But here goes:  
_**

_**I'm lying in Kuon's bed -**  
_

He immediately froze when his eyes landed on the sentence with his real name in it.

True, since he and Kyoko had recently become a couple, she made a habit of coming by his apartment whenever she could find the time; she even had her own key now, at his insistence and with his blessing to come and go as she pleased, even if he wasn't there (though he made it clear he loved it when they were together in the privacy of his home). Often enough it was in the early evenings, and she was obliged to sleep over if she had stayed late enough, as he outright refused to let her go traipsing about the city after dark.

She wasn't unfamiliar with his bed by this point ...

... Well, _sleeping_ in it, at any rate.

In fact, the whole reason he was even going against his own sense of integrity and violating her privacy was because of her sudden tendency to toss and turn next to him in a way that went far beyond any ordinary restlessness. She said things in her sleep, things he couldn't always make out, but that troubled him when he could.

He knew just enough about her childhood to let that worry him. There had been a time or two when he had heard her carrying on grim conversations with her mother. These incidents he didn't try to call to her conscious attention, knowing that ignorance was bliss where that painful relationship was concerned. Most recently, just two days prior, he could have sworn he heard her calling out for a doctor, though he had only recalled it the moment he'd awoken the next day.

Ren had _tried_ to broach this topic the following morning, but his guilt and concern seemed to have troubled her more than whatever was going on in her dreams, which she didn't seem to recall vividly enough to trouble her waking hours. She had instead fussed at him endlessly that morning, asking several times why he looked at her "with such needless worry" and practically begging him to let the matter drop.

He didn't fancy himself some sort of dream interpreter or therapist. But he had to at least know if _he_ was somehow causing her unrest. Or if it was tied to her grim past and if there was anything he could do to help. What better way to find out than to read the dream journal she had been keeping for months on end?

_How about just asking her, you moron? _he thought for about the millionth time since coming up with this harebrained scheme. _Reading her private thoughts and presuming to know what's best for her ... that's something that Fuwa bastard would have done.  
_

The thought lanced him right in the chest, flooding him with shame at the thought of stooping to that fool's level. Kyoko didn't need more of the same in her life, not after going through all she had to fully disengage from him. He summoned his very well-founded reasons for doing this, needing that clear line between him and the singer.

He knew Kyoko: If he expressed any worry on her behalf, she would take it as a sign to repress herself further. She still seemed to think of herself as a burden to him, despite all the evidence to the contrary - not the least of which was the love he felt for her in no uncertain terms. And she certainly wasn't about to _ask_ for help, not even from him. Perhaps _least_ of all from him, since the dream seemed to involve him.

Which left the red leather journal as his only chance. His only portal into that part of her mind she wouldn't readily share with him.

His eyes drifted back to the entry, noting again the date and time at the top of the page. She must have woken up without him knowing and written it immediately. This had only been a few days ago, the same night he had heard her calling for a doctor. He picked up reading where he had left off just a moment before:

_**- and I seem to be wearing a blindfold. My wrists are bound behind me and my ankles are as well.**  
_

He blinked, reread the two lines, reread the entire passage twice in the space of about three seconds, and still couldn't quite believe what he was reading. _What just ... What? Ankles ... ? What?_

_**I hear him come into the room, recognizing his tread on the carpet. He draws close, the heat of his body warming my face as he settles in front of me.**  
_

His eyes widened, and heat flared from his neck all the way up to the roots of his dyed hair as the image Kyoko laid forth invaded his mind like the insistent buzz of a chilled white wine.

**_He's a doctor ... I think. That might just be dream logic telling me so, because he doesn't actually declare himself as such. But he's a doctor nonetheless._**

_Why am I a doctor? More importantly, why am I the kind of doctor who ties up patients in his bed? I wonder if this dream ends with me being arrested ...  
_

_**At least, I hope he was a doctor. Or some sort of licensed medical practitioner. Otherwise, I'm not sure I should have been so compliant when he started my ... "check-up", as it were.**  
_

His jaw dropped, and a few years worth of sexual frustration reared up within like a storm._  
_

**_He stuck a thermometer in my mouth. _**

_Oh, God.  
_

**_I'm pretty sure it wasn't really a thermometer, either. _****_In fact, I know it wasn't. _**

_Oh, GOD. Kyoko, darling, shut up, please, what am I saying, I'm the one reading it, why am I still reading this ... ?  
_

**_I've never seen that part of him, but I know it was ... that. This is so far beyond wrong, even for me. When did I become such a deviant? And, God help me, the things he said to me as I was unable to talk back ... _**

The storm within quickly escalated into a flood that threatened to drown him where he stood.

**_... I dare not even commit them to this page._**

Thoughts became impossible to manage in words, much less complete sentences. He could see the scene in his head, the image so sharp and crisp it seared his mind's eye and moved his blood in very unhelpful directions at a speed he found dizzying. He pinched the inside of his wrist hard enough to bruise, using the pain as a distraction. It was an old trick, one he hadn't had to use in quite some time. His heart hammered in relief as his erection became tame enough to hide once more. He glanced around the empty room, his hairline damp with sweat.

_You see?_ his conscience sneered at him. _This is why you don't go reading other people's journals. You never know what you might find_.

Despite lacking a history of respiratory problems, Ren felt the unmistakable signs of hyperventilation coming on and shut the journal for a moment, his thumb wedged firmly between the pages he had left off on. Once he got himself back under control (just barely), he reopened it and reread the last passage, just to be sure he wasn't imagining things. Then continued on to the next, aroused and apprehensive and aggrieved all at once:

_**Part of me wants to tell him about this, just to see the look on his face.** _

He snorted in acute self-disgust, imagining just how he would have taken this if she had posed it to him directly. The mental image of him tackling her like a quarterback, the dinner table toppling in their wake as he pinned her to the floor, gave him pause. Was he really such a barbarian? Couldn't he approach it like a civilized man?

The answer seemed to be a very decided _No_. This didn't sit well with him at all.

_**The other part is far more prudent and doesn't want him to know how depraved my mind can get.** _

He smiled sadly. He knew how she felt. There had been quite a few questionable daydreams he had had of her.

_**And there's still another part, a very troubling part of me, which is making quite a bit of fuss at the moment and won't let me go back to sleep any time soon.** _

This line gave him pause. He could _really_ sympathize with her there.

_**Especially with "The Doctor" in question still snoring up a storm down the hallway. He just looks so cute when he sleeps.**_

_As do you_, he thought, allowing a tiny, affectionate smirk to curve his lip.

_**I don't think he'd take too kindly to being woken up with my nonsense. I think I'll just meditate and then try to go back to sleep. End dream log #259.**  
_

She had written this in his home, most likely in his office if the reference to him "snoring up a storm" (_Oh, you're one to talk, Kyoko-chan_) down the hall was anything to go by. And she had acted so normally when they had breakfast the morning after, apart from her concern about him. He hadn't suspected a thing as they sat chatting at the table. She had been every inch the charming oddball he knew and loved that morning. He hadn't suspected a thing. Not a thing.

That she was having these kinds of dreams ... these kinds of thoughts ... right under his nose ... _right in his bed_, no less, was nothing short of mind-blowing.

His mind began to drift into a haze. Contrary to what she believed, he would have taken _very_ kindly to this "nonsense". True, he might have missed out on another few hours of sleep.

But those hours would not have been wasted ...

"... Ren?"

He swung around to face the open door, the closed journal clutched tightly in front of his crotch, looking for all the world like a schoolboy caught with a dirty magazine.

"Yashiro! Hello. Hi. What's ... ? Hi."

_Jesus, Kuon, why not just take out a billboard proclaiming what you've done? That's FAR more subtle than this nonsense right here._

The blond manager goggled at the sight of a very obviously flustered Ren Tsuruga. It didn't seem possible, but there it was before him: He of the unshakeable composure and nerves of steel was _flustered_. And with a luminescent blush on his face, to boot. It was at that moment that he looked more his age than Yashiro had ever seen him look.

Yukihito Yashiro glanced around the room, fully expecting to find Rod Serling* in the corner talking to an unseen viewer.

"A-Are you okay, Ren? Is everything alright?" his manager asked in blatant concern.

"Yes. I'm fine." He clutched the journal tighter in front of him, wishing he'd never touched the damn thing in the first place, even as he guiltily savored the residual after image of him taking Kyoko's ... "temperature" ...

"Are you sure? You look kind of ... I don't know ... "

_If he says 'turned on', I'm slitting my throat right here and now.  
_

"... Guilty?"

"I haven't anything to be guilty for," he lied, most of his trademark composure returning out of sheer defensiveness.

Yashiro nodded, looking thoroughly unconvinced. "Oookay." He glanced down at the book clutched in his charge's hands. "What's that you're reading there?"

Before he could come up with an answer, a familiar voice echoed from outside the open door of the break room:

"I just need to find my bag! I'll be right there, Moko-san! Don't leave without me, I'll just be a minute!"

At the sound of his girlfriend's voice coming closer, he hastily stuck the journal back into the bag at an approximation of the haphazard angle it had been when he'd found it. Then gave a pointed look at a very stunned Yashiro, a finger pressed to his lips in a plea for silence. _What have I become ... ?_

His infinitely pitiful state was immediately forgotten when the love of his life came rocketing into the room.

Her chestnut hair was tied low in pigtails, one of which was crinkled from an excess of humidity while the other somehow lay perfectly spiky-straight as usual. She was still sporting one false set of eyelashes and errant patches of white body paint from her role as a pale wraith.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Kyoko Mogami was life and death and love incarnate, a perfect little package of chaos and joy tied up with neurotic ribbons. He wouldn't change so much as hair on her head for anything in the world.

He felt it come over him then, as he always did and likely always would: He had nicknamed it The Mogami Effect.

A strange blend of calm and excitement that started at two different points - the calm deep in his gut, the excitement high in his chest - flared within. The two poles converged and ignited somewhere in his sternum. It created a slow simmer not unlike the pots of stew she would often make in his otherwise unused kitchen, wafting heavenly aromas through his lonely apartment.

This feeling was love, of that there could be no question. And yet, it was a separate magic all her own as well, a bewitchment she wasn't yet fully aware of, but could stir in him and just about anyone else without any discernible effort on her part. Something that made the air around her charged and electric and fragrant and so blissfully dangerous that you couldn't resist her even when it might be wise to do so.

She pulled up short when she recognized them across the room and bowed, smiling over at them. "Oh, hello, you two! Have you seen my - Oh, there it is! Thanks for looking after it, Ts ..._ Ren-kun_."

She called him by his real name readily enough when they were alone, but was still getting used to calling him by his given stage name outside of his apartment (at his insistence, of course). The emphasis with which she called him torqued his insides like an eggbeater, scrambling him up into a frothy mess.

_Truth be told, you are a frothy mess._

Ren beamed down at her as she approached. "Not at all."

Kyoko slung the bag over her shoulder and smiled nervously up at him.

"I-I'll see you later?" she asked. Pleading. Beseeching. As if he wouldn't be utterly ecstatic if she burst into his domain unannounced.

He nodded, smiling wide and languorous. "You will."

She nodded back in relief, dazzling and unsure and hopeful all at once. "Good."

Then, rather than indicating that he should lean down (the way any other girl would), she jumped about a foot in the air, hovered just long enough to plant a kiss on the side of Ren's jaw before landing and running out of the room, passing an infinitely amused Yashiro as she did.

As soon as they were alone once more, Yashiro turned back to find Ren leaning back against one of the counters, hands raking through his dark hair.

"Sooo ... ?" the older man inquired curiously.

"It was her dream journal," he confessed quietly. "I read one of her dreams."

Yashiro's eyes widened, his mind spinning with all the myriad possibilities of what could have been written on those pages. Kyoko Mogami's mind was strange enough during her waking hours. He could only imagine what her dreams were like. "Oh."

"It was about me."

Yashiro's eyebrows lifted in transparent interest. His face reddened as the myriad possibilities racking his brain taking on a decidedly intimate focus. "_Oh_."

"It was ..." _Erotic. Disturbing. Disturbingly erotic. Erotically disturbing._ "... something."

Ren raked a hand through his hair and started off after his manager. He had the definite suspicion that his own dreams tonight were going to be haunted by stethoscopes and a squirming, nubile patient with chestnut hair ...

Then he remembered that he had just invited her over, ostensibly for a late supper, and stifled a groan.

_As if I want to eat ... Well, not food, anyway ... Oh, God, already with t__he double meanings? This is going to be a long night._

* * *

**Rod Serling! Get it? Because he's landed in _The Twilight Zone_? ... Ugh, I need to stop explaining my own jokes. -_-**

**I don't want to hear the same old bullshit about how Kyoko is OOC, alright? There's a lot of reasons why this is plausible. **

**For one: Kyoko is a young woman. An _unusual_ young woman with a thought process that may boggle the mind at first glance, but a young woman nonetheless. And as such, she is not devoid of sexual fantasies any more than any other person. And given how left-of-center she is in most other ways, it shouldn't really be considered so surprising that she would be somewhat kinky as well. For god's sake, people, in the manga she made a life-size replica of Ren Motherfuckin' Tsuruga. That's many days and many hours of_ physically reconstructing a man's body with her own two hands_. A man she happens to _know personally_. (Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that's a fetish or kink in its own right. Rule 34, darlings ...)  
**

**For another: she is in a committed relationship. This is an important step for Kyoko's character, given her past issues with love and trust. She may not be comfortable telling Ren what's going on in that particular part of her head yet, but she's no longer afraid to _feel_ what she feels, even if what she feels makes her uncomfortable. And naturally, once that door (or in her case, box) is open, there's no telling what's going to come out.  
**

**For yet another: the subject of sex has not been _explicitly_ delved into in the SB! manga (though obviously 196 is by far the closest to explicit the manga has ever gotten). And as this isn't a hentai, it probably won't ever get _explicit_-explicit. Now I ask you: Whose to say what would go on with those two behind closed doors? Exactly! This is what fanfiction is, people: Conjecture. Dwelling on what could possibly be.  
**

**And finally: It's my story, and I fucking felt like it. So there! XP  
**

**Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I'm going to enjoy writing it.  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**disclaimer**: I do not own Skip Beat!

In which there is cute couple's banter and touch-y feel-y good times (nothing steamy, the good stuff is on the way) ... and intrigue! Consider this chapter the beginnings of a slow simmer as the heat turns up.

* * *

_**Chapter Two**_

* * *

Kyoko Mogami was a very perceptive young woman.

It was a quality often impaired when it came to her own blind spots, and she could never lay claim to it as a virtue without feeling as though she were boasting, but the fact remained. Wherever she looked, there was something to see and to understand. And if it wasn't immediately understandable, she simply kept her eye on it until it was. Most, if not all quandaries, were eventually resolved in this way.

Then Kuon Hizuri happened.

It was a strange thing, being in love. The two of them could sometimes share a wordless look, a kind of thought and emotion transference occurring in their met gazes, manifesting that strange sort of telepathy that couples get. They could have conversations wherein most of the sentences weren't even complete because, really, the subject was just too fascinating and they so quickly understood one another.

It was an even stranger thing, being that close to the man not a foot and a half away from her ... and yet still being so utterly baffled by him as well. Right at this moment, for instance, he seemed about as comprehensible as the outer reaches of space. An exaggeration, sure, but not by much!

He had been ... not really distant, not really odd, not really anything at all, just a bit ... off since she had come over this evening. He had opened the door to her, kissed her hello and chatted with her as she cooked as he usually did, but ... something didn't feel right. He seemed watch her more than he was talking to her. True, he didn't speak less than he normally did, but he was definitely keeping an uncomfortably close, almost intense eye on her. Several times she asked him:

"Is something the matter, Kuon?"

And several times, he snapped out of his peculiar revery to reply:

"No, nothing. Why do you ask?"

And, of course, she couldn't really say why she asked. Because she didn't know. She had no idea what was going on with him, no idea what in particular to pinpoint as a problem. He was hitting all the right notes (asking how her day was, if she had seen what the President and his entourage were cosplaying as today, what new projects Sawara had floated her way, etc.), but the way he was watching her made every one of these innocent questions seem like an interrogation. Kyoko didn't mind him looking at her, not in the least. But ... it seemed rather like he was looking _for_ something.

_I'm imagining things_, she thought resolutely as she put her hands together in gratitude for her food. _Unless he's noticed I've put on weight ..._

But even that wouldn't justify this blasted intensity! What on earth was his problem?

Kuon had been staring at her for what amounted to about a full twenty minutes by the time they finished eating dinner. He would glance at the television from time to time, or down to his food, but other than that, his gaze kept finding its way back to her. She asked him once more what was wrong, but he had only shaken his head.

_I can't keep looking over at him. We'll be in a staring contest then! And who knows what will happen ... ?_

A familiar heat unfurled inside her at the thought. They had stared each other into some ... _interesting_ predicaments before. Nothing she wouldn't feel too uncomfortable daydreaming about sometimes or, if pressed, sharing with Moko-san or Amamiya, but ... _interesting_ nonetheless. She was never afraid to look him in the eye, of course, but she knew better than to start something she couldn't finish.

And long, long looks into one another's eyes were always the start of something.

She mentally doused the heat with cold water and drank down the last of her soup. "Did you enjoy it?"

He flinched ever so slightly at her words, then blinked and finally seemed to _see_ her. Never mind that he had been _blatantly staring_ _at her_ all this time. "Enjoy what?" he asked blankly.

She set her chopsticks down across her empty bowl and exhaled patiently. "The food ... Was it alright?"

He smiled vaguely. "It was wonderful."

"I'm glad," she said, hardly reassured and reached over to pick up his bowl. His hand fell over hers, and she froze.

"Kyoko-cha - " he began.

"Oh, no, you don't!" she said vehemently, snatching up his bowl and fitting it under her own. "We're not having this discussion again."

He blinked. "Eh?"

"You were about to tell me not to do the dishes because I always cook. Like you always do."

Kuon blinked again, but didn't speak.

"Weren't you ... ?" she asked, confused about why this familiar exchange hadn't yet commenced.

The slightest hint of a smile quirked the right side of his mouth. "... Ah, no, actually."

Chagrin warmed Kyoko's face. "Oh."

A few moments of awkward silence passed.

"But now that you've mentioned it -" he began, falling into the routine with ease.

"Now that I've mentioned it, it needn't be mentioned again," she said as she marched off to the kitchen, dishes in tow. "Now, please, just watch TV and relax. It won't take me but a few minutes."

She ran the hot water in the sink, adding dish soap. She found herself thinking of Pavlov and his salivating dogs as she watched the sink fill with fragrant foam. This - the act of washing the dishes - was the stimulus.

Then came the conditioned response: Kuon, like clockwork, looming just behind her as she stood over the sink.

Being the perceptive girl she was (and this really didn't need deep thought), she has picked up on the way he could never resist messing with her while she did the dishes. A fact she had not merely come to expect, but to eagerly await. In a way she felt guilty. Not that they were doing anything wrong - they were just dishes, after all. Still, it seemed almost ... indecent.

His hands settled on the edge of the sink, right around where her elbows were as she washed a stainless steel pot. She tried and failed to ignore the thrill that shot through her.

"I think the TV in the _other_ room, Kuon."

In a voice that made her almost certain that he was reviving "Ni-san's" puppy-dog eyes, he replied "Yes, but _you're_ not."

"I will be," she said imperiously as she scrubbed, "once I finish the dishes."

"You know," he said, dropping the puppy-dog voice in favor of a lofty drawl, "these are _my_ dishes, after all. How do you suppose they got washed before you started cooking here, hmm?"

"If I had to guess, you either threw them into the dishwasher, or you just ordered out and didn't use them at all."

"How rude," he said with mock petulance, propping his chin on the top of her head as he huddled closer to her. The heat of his towering body never failed to release an entire field of butterflies in her stomach, but she managed to stay calm enough. There was no hiding the goosebumps, though. He could hardly fail to notice them, as his skin pressed against hers, but he was still too much of a gentleman to tease her about them.

"You say it's rude, but you don't deny it? Very telling, Kuon."

"I don't have to deny anything," he sniffed. "They're my dishes."

"Well, for the time being, they're _my_ dishes. They'll be yours again once they're clean."

"Keep it up, and I might throw _you_ in the dishwasher, Kyoko-chan," he threatened, placing his hands on her waist.

"So you admit you're used to tossing things in there? Again, very telling."

"Just one dish? Please?"

"No."

"Why not?"

She sighed and patiently explained, "I am the one cooking here. Therefore I am the one using the dishes. If I dirty a dish, it's only fair that I should be the one to wash it. Why should you have to wash them if, for instance, I decide to make something complicated that needs a lot of pots and pans?"

"May I offer a polite rebuttal?" he asked, twining his arms around her waist.

"You may," she allowed, focusing every ounce of her self-control on not melting.

He leaned further down, then unceremoniously put his lips to her neck and blew a very loud raspberry, startling a squeal of mingled annoyance and delight out of her. So much for not melting.

"_Neh_! Go on with you!" she demanded through her sputtering laughter, tempted to blast him with the hose attachment.

"No. If I can't wash my own dishes, then I'll at least stay for the washing itself."

"What sense does that make!"

"It's the principle of the thing." He wrapped his arms languidly around her neck, putting just enough of his weight on her to bow her forward slightly. "Carry on, woman."

"So stubborn," she grumbled, scrubbing at a small sauce pot.

The two of them continued on this same vein ("At least let me wash this one, it takes more elbow grease than you've got.") for some time ("It's a _non-stick_ skillet, it does not!"), until the dishes were clean. As soon as she pulled the plug from the drain to let the water out, Kuon scooped her up princess-style and began to trot back towards the living room.

"I still have to wipe the counters!" she shrieked, wrapping her arms around his neck to steady herself.

"Nope. You're welcome to my dishes, but my counters are off-limits."

"_Why_ - ?"

"Hush. The show's about to start."

"But the counters - !"

_**. . .**_

About fifteen minutes, Kyoko lay stretched out in the living room, reclining on Kuon as he reclined on the sleek leather sofa. She was laughing uproariously, her face flushed and her coppery hair fanned out over Kuon's chest. The counters were long since forgotten.

"Wha ... Wha ... Whatever possessed Kijima to do stand-up comedy, I'm glad it did," Kyoko managed to gasp between guffaws. "This is _hysterical_!"

"It is, at that," he agreed, more than a little intrigued by how much his girlfriend was enjoying Kijima's gutter humor. That in itself was pretty hilarious, and he found himself watching her more than the show.

He forced his eyes back to the show. He had obviously unsettled her earlier with his staring. He hadn't been able to help it. Some simple-minded impulse had led him to gawk at her, as though that part of her - that part which was capable of those thoughts that were now plaguing _him, _that hadn't _stopped_ plaguing him this whole time, damn it all - would suddenly make itself known, become clear and discernible and obvious.

Kyoko gasped suddenly and began waving her hand at him. "Wait, wait, what time is it? I think -"

"Oh, yeah, it should be coming on any minute," he noted, picking up the remote and flipping to the cooking channel Kyoko was so fond of.

A few minutes into the episode (this one a tutorial on at-home flambé for beginners), Kyoko shifted positions, pressing her cheek to his chest as she settled her hip between his outstretched legs. He stiffened in more ways than one, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Good grief, Kuon!"

_Or not_. "Eh?"

Fortunately, she wasn't looking at where he was inadvertently prodding her. "What happened to your wrist?"

"What ... ?" His eyes fell to the small purplish bruise on the inside of the wrist she was now clutching close to her face. "Oh. Well. Look at that."

"I _am_ looking at that! What on earth happened?"

_I had to divert my thoughts and my blood flow before my erection made me pass out. No big deal._

"No idea," he lied. "I must have knocked into something by accident."

"But it's a _pinch_ mark, I can tell! Why would you pinch yourself? And that hard? _Did_ you pinch yourself that hard? Who's been pinching you?!" she demanded breathlessly, looking so ready to thrash whoever had done the pinching that he couldn't help but laugh. Her concern touched him, really it did, but she was far too adorable for her own good. Or his, for that matter.

"You can kiss it and make it better," he teased, trying not to dwell on the fact that it wasn't his wrist he was thinking of at the moment.

"Or I could just appease you with sweets, you big baby," she grumbled, standing up and heading back to the kitchen. "The dessert's definitely cooled anyhow."

Kuon trailed after her, mumbling, "When did you find time to make dessert?"

She opened the refrigerator and pulled a out glass dish filled with a moist yellow cake topped with curls of shaved chocolate and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

"Butter mochi, right?" he asked, mouth already watering.

"Mmm-hmm," she replied, cutting out a small square and plating it for him. "Here you are. Tell me if the chocolate shavings work, otherwise I'll switch back to coconut flakes next time."

"Thank you." He took the plate. "Wait, where's yours?"

"Where's my what?" she asked.

"Your piece. Aren't you having some?"

"No, I don't want any," she said.

Kuon arched his brow at her. He knew better than to argue with her about her weight directly, so he didn't even try. "Really."

Her lips pressed together stubbornly at his obvious skepticism. "Yes."

He plucked a morsel of the cake up with his chopsticks and held it out to Kyoko. "Not even one bite?"

She shook her head. "Absolutely not. I'm still full from dinner."

"No, you're not," he challenged.

"I really would have prefered the coconut after all," she fibbed, her eyes following the morsel as her wafted it under her nose.

"You love chocolate," he said.

"I, uh ... have a sore tooth," she offered weakly.

And because he couldn't help himself, because he hadn't been able to stop replaying her dream in his head, he said something then that he knew he shouldn't, voice suddenly husky with temptation:

"Say _aah_, Kyoko-chan."

He watched in a sick kind of fascination as her face turned a particularly lurid shade of pink. _I am going straight to hell for this, _he thought.

"... _Eh_?" Her voice was a tiny squeak. Her jaw had slackened somewhat, just enough for him to slip the sweet between her lips. Her mouth closed over it in surprise. Her face mellowed with the bliss of that first bite melting on her tongue the way all her desserts did, and the thought of things melting on her tongue was really unhelpful at this moment, so he tried to leave it alone.

It didn't work, but he tried. Lord, how he tried.

"So you're not going to tell me why you pinched yourself then?" she asked once she'd swallowed.

He plucked off another morsel and held it out. "Nope, not until you have some more. Open up, doctor's orders."

_Yes. Straight to hell. Subtlety be damned along with me._

"For goodness sake, it's not cough medicine, I'll be alright without it," she protested with an even deeper blush, laughing as she dodged the piece until he gave up and ate it himself.

"Did I ever tell you I almost went into medicine?" he said without thinking.

She became very, very still. "What?"

"Medicine. I considered being a doctor," he said, barely managing not to grimace at the falsehood, "before I pursued acting. Did I never tell you that?"

"... No. No, you didn't tell me that."

Her eyes narrowed to golden slits that bore straight through him like swords. "I wonder why you're telling me now ..."

* * *

**I apologize for the dose of feels that this chapter may have given you, dear readers. This is what my fangirl dreams are made of: Kyoko and Kuon bickering over the dishes while playing grab-ass at the sink.**

**Yes.**

**Till next time!**


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